


the five stages of grief

by enaxii



Series: Sheith Angst Week 2018 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astral Plane, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Sheith Angst Week 2018, is crack of midnight even a thing, its mostly shiro, major character death for shiro but we all know what happens later, this thing is completely unbetaed and written at the crack of midnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 20:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15804282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enaxii/pseuds/enaxii
Summary: day 1: unrequited //astral planeShiro learns to accept his death, again.





	the five stages of grief

His world ends in the stars.

There’s electricity that pours through his veins, arcing through his body and burning him to the ground. The comms die as Voltron is pulled apart, and Shiro can only hear a distant roaring before space seems to expand before his eyes, and the Black Lion drifts in space.

There is no pilot in her cockpit.

\---

His world restarts in the stars. When Shiro comes to, his world is tinged purple and black, specks of light dotting the horizon. He knows this place like he knows that blood that was stained on the ground the last time he was here, and Shiro can’t help the fear that slips down his spine.

But this time, there’s no one threatening to crush his throat, no one throwing him from one end of the plane to the other, no one spilling his blood onto the cold floor of the astral plane.

There is no one, only the tired presence of a Lion barely there, rumbling in her sleep.

Shiro dies, and comes to, alone.

He can’t leave the astral plane, doesn’t have anyone to talk to, so he walks. He walks the vast expenses of the plane, like there’s something that is tugging at him, towards an invisible goal that Shiro doesn’t know what is and where is. The plane is cold and he barely registers it, a statistic that sits in his mind just like the Black Lion sits in the astral plane, unmoving.

There’s a sense of urgency that keeps him moving, like he needs to be faster than some clock he can’t see, and all Shiro knows is that he needs to _get out_. Something, someone, is coming, and he needs to warn the Paladins.

But no matter how far he walks, the invisible endpoint doesn’t manifest, and the string that tugs at his soul doesn’t slacken. It is then that Shiro realises that maybe, he isn’t able to find the exit because he _can’t_ leave. It is then that he realises that maybe, the last thing he felt, burning to the ground, is real, and that all that’s left of him in the real world are ashes that float in space, ashes that mingle with the wreckage and the debris.

It is then that he realises that maybe, Shiro has become a permanent fixture in the astral plane, and that he can never get back to the other Paladins, and his legs gives for the first time.

The thoughts sink into him, knife slicing through his mind like the blade that cut through his arm, and Shiro just sits in the middle of the astral plane. The stars are still shining in the skies, but they are far above, unreachable, just like _home_. They’re unreachable like the Earth, like the Castle of Lions, like Keith’s arms as they sit together in the darkness, Shiro trembling after a nightmare in the arena.

Shiro feels like this is another nightmare, but it’s one that he can never wake up from, one where he will never find himself in Keith’s arms at the end, smooth circles on his back.

The thoughts sink into him like claws that hook onto his skin, tearing away at him as his tears sting in his eyes.

He doesn’t want to believe it, can’t believe it. Shiro has always known he would die, has lived with that fact every day of his life since the diagnosis report first fell from his trembling hands. But knowing that he _has_ in fact died, that this is his afterlife, a pretty package wrapped to hide the mess within, it was something else entirely.

Shiro has always accepted the fact that he will die, has already worked his way through the stages of grief and accepted the fact. Yet, something has changed from Earth till now. He gained Adam, he lost Adam. Worked his way through his grief, moved on. It’s a mechanical process now, just an old friend he greets with all the bitterness in a pretty package wrapped to hide the mess within.

Shiro knows what it is like to _know_ you’re going to die, knows what it is like to lose something dear to you (your future, your love, your arm), but somewhere along the way, he gained something new, something that burnt through all he knows, something that he doesn’t want to lose.

Shiro doesn’t want to believe that he’s died, not when there are open arms that wait for him in the Castle after so long of being alone in a Galra cell.

The first stage of grief is denial.

\---

The next stage of grief is anger.

Shiro spends the next few hours yelling into the unhearing skies. He never gets to keep his happiness, and the universe is a hungry beast that just keeps taking and taking and taking.

He collapses to the floor and pounds his first on it over and over, exactly like a spoilt child who didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas, only that Shiro isn’t spoilt because he knows what it’s like to lose. He works his way through his rage, screaming till his voice is hoarse and he trembles on the floor.

But no one responds, and Shiro is alone in his anger.

The sensation of a hug, a hand clasped to his chest, begins to fade.

\---

When Black finally begins to wake, Shiro finds himself pulled out of the astral plane. For just a moment, he’s excited, but Allura passes through him like he’s a ghost, and Shiro realises that he _is_ a ghost in the real world.

He’s tinged purple and he can touch the Paladins but they can’t touch him. He can hear the Paladins, see the Paladins, but no one responds to his calls.

The prosecution before the judge, presenting more evidence to a case that’s already locked in his favour.

Shiro’s dead, and the truth is hammered into his head.

One by one, the Paladins come up to the Black Lion, test out the pilot seat, prod at the bond of the Black Lion.

Each time, Black remains silent, unreachable in the stars.

Shiro paces the cockpit, because he can’t leave and he’s getting agitated. He doesn’t know if _all_ the Paladins survived the last battle ( _his_ last battle) in one piece, and he’s confirmed all of them except for one -- Keith.

There’s a hiccup, where every second that passes mounts Shiro’s worries higher on the wall. He feels like his skin is being slowly turned inside out, every breath he takes like choking on jagged glass shards. At last, red armour emerges from the darkness of the cockpit entrance, and Shiro finally can breathe, the thorns in his throat loosening its grip.

_“I know you wanted this for me, Shiro._

_But I’m not you._

_I can’t lead them like you.”_

Shiro remembers a conversation under the sunset, a fire flickering before them as pain tears through his side.

_(“Keith, if I don’t make it out of here, I want you to lead Voltron.”_

_A pause in the conversation, eyebrows that scrunch together into a frown as Keith’s eyes widen._

_“Stop talking like that. You’re gonna make it.”)_

The Black Lion comes to life, and Keith sucks in his breath, and it rattles in his chest.

_“Please, no…”_

There are broken shards in his voice, and Shiro knows what Keith’s thinking.

 _Please, no_ , because if the Black Lion accepts Keith as her new Paladin, that must mean that the old one is dead.

The words _please, no_ are for Shiro, and they sound so broken that all Shiro wants to do is to hold Keith tightly and never let go, to hold the weight of the world for Keith when they’ve both already lost so much.

Now, they’ve lost each other, too.

When Shiro reawakens in the purple world, he starts to walk, to seek a way out, because there _must_ be a reason that something drags him to his feet, there _must_ be a reason something yanks at him to move and doesn’t let go.

He needs to get out because now Keith is alone under the weight of the name of “Black Paladin” and the world, but there is no entrance that presents itself to Shiro.

Even then, he keeps walking.

The third stage to grief is to bargain, to seek in vain for a way out.

\---

The fourth stage is depression.

Shiro read it somewhere before, on a late night google spiral, that it’s the last stage before acceptance, the final realization of the inevitable. The hurricane that ravenges cities, uprooting happy families and beautiful structures, uncaring of death and loss and how it tears apart the world.

He spends days just laying down on the floor, staring blankly at the stars as he ponders all that he’s lost. He wonders what he would have done if the Kerberos mission had been successful. He wonders if Adam is living a good life. He wonders what the Galra are doing to the arm they took.

He wonders about Keith, and how he’s doing.

There’s so much that they could have done. After the war, maybe they would return to Earth. Maybe he would make his peace with Adam, maybe he and Keith would settle in some quiet town, buy a house with white fences and plaster the walls with stars. Maybe they would travel the universe, find its secrets and its wonders, all the little nooks and crannies that have been untouched by the Galra.

Every thought is interspaced with “I’m dead” and “This isn’t something I can do anymore”. The quiet realisation as Shiro lives through all the could-have’s and what-if’s, and the hurricane simmers.

Tears finds its way to the surface no matter how much Shiro tries to stop it. Realising that they would never have a dog together, never see the world together, never fall asleep next to each other and wake up in each other’s arms anymore -- it hurt. The tears sting his open wounds, sting as much as all the “I’m dead”’s and what-if’s.

Some days he doesn’t move, some days he runs like Zarkon’s pursuing him through the violet world.

He always thinks of Keith, and when the wounds begin to heal, slowly, slowly, Shiro closes his eyes and thinks of Keith’s lips on his own.

The tears wash away the scabs that form, and Keith’s words chases it down his face, soft whispers in his ears at 1am in the morning.

They’re all only memories, and the fifth stage of grief is acceptance.

Shiro accepts himself as nothing more than a memory, now.

\---

(Later on, anger ripples through the astral plane. Shiro sees Keith, staring out the windscreen and at a small craft that floats in the middle of space.

_“We found him.”_

And at last, Shiro knows what the string has been tugging him towards.)

**Author's Note:**

> alright! back with another voltron fic, and it’s for sheith angst week!  
> please excuse my ramblings, this was not edited much and written at midnight in place of doing work.  
> find me on my [tumblr](https://enaxii.tumblr.com/)!


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